11 
gence of Sir J. Franklin’s expedition, and that science has sustained 
a heavy loss in the death of a distinguished French officer ; the 
latest sacrifice to the perils of Arctic discovery. 
Many now present were acquainted with Lieut. Bellot, and I am 
sure they will bear me out in this, that there was a singleness of 
purpose, and a propriety of feeling in everything he said and did, 
in perfect keeping with the tenor of his previous life ; and though 
he was here so short a time, he was regarded as a friend by all who 
knew him. 
You have heard no doubt with sincere pride, that British valour, 
and British j)erseveraace, have at length solved the problem of the 
north-west passage. A question of great geographical interest has 
thus been settled, and an important fact has been added to the data 
of terrestrial physics. In all future inquiries relative to the oceanic 
currents, the tides, the variations of temperature, the winds, and 
meteorological phenomena generally, it will no longer be a doubtful 
assumption, that the sea flows freely around the northern coast of 
America. 
It now only remains for me to state, and I have the greatest plea- 
sure in doing so, that your Society is prosperous. The publication 
of your Transactions proceeds regularly, and they continue to be, 
as they have been for two centuries, the records of every important 
addition to British science. There is no indication of a diminished 
anxiety to share in your labours, the candidates for admission are 
numerous, and your Council have had no difficulty, though acting 
under a heavy responsibility, in pointing out to you the required 
number of persons in every way worthy of the Fellowship. 
So far the present system of election appears to me to have worked 
extremely well. The Fellow'ship is sought for as a high honour, and 
here, as at the Universities, the claims of the respective candidates are 
tested by responsible persons. 
In this, the Royal Society diflrers from every other Society ; and 
I think upon the preservation of that distinction, the welfare, the 
position, perhaps the existence of our Society depends. For 150 
years the Royal Society stood alone; unaided it bore the whole 
labour of wielding the power of Association, in the cause of pro- 
gressing science. Recently other Societies were formed to meet more 
fully the wants of individual sciences; not as rivals to the Royal 
Society, (in all of them our Fellows have held very prominent places) 
but as the most friendly allies; not dependent on the Royal Society, 
but fully admitting its pre-eminence. 
These Societies have rendered important services; much has been 
effected through their means which otherwise would not have been 
attempted. Science has been carried out by them in the utmost 
detail. Besides, it is a law of human nature, that we usually form 
a high estimate of the importance of the pursuit we are engaged in ; 
and in a Society limited to one science, that feeling will necessarily 
predominate, and will act as a stimulus to exertion. Under its in- 
fluence, labour will be cheerfully borne, from which under other cir- 
cumstances we should recoil with disgust. That feeling, however. 
